


As the Morning Purged With Flame

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A Leitner Made Them Do It (The Magnus Archives), Desk Sex, Elias Bouchard Is A Creep, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Manipulation, Ominous Foreshadowing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Elias leaves Jon an unlabeled Leitner, and reaps the rewards of its enchantment for himself.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	As the Morning Purged With Flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).



When Jon pokes his head into Elias’s office, he’s already sweating, and Elias can see the discomfort rolling off him even without resorting to Beholding’s own powerful vision. Even practically shaking where he stands, Jon still manages to wear that glare of suspicion he’s worn since Prentiss’s attack on the Institute, and that makes Elias smile inwardly. All that paranoia, and his Archivist still couldn’t manage to see the trap laid right in front of him. 

Leitner never catalogued all the books like his in existence. Many of them have slipped unnoticed into the stream of the secondhand book trade, fallen into charity shops, or been tucked away in libraries. Libraries like that of the Magnus Institute. The slim red volume Elias left on Jon’s desk has been in his possession for a very, very long time. It bears no bookplate, and seems pleasingly safe. All the easier for an unwitting Archivist to pick up and read. And then, really, it only took skimming a few pages to send desire coursing through Jon’s limbs, bowing him under the weight of a burning, painful need. Elias watched him all the while, waiting until he was good and feverish to summon him. 

It can’t have been easy for Jon to pick his way up to the office. He’s leaning with the weight of his whole body against the doorframe, panting slightly, as if even standing is too much for him, and when he looks at Elias, it’s with glazed eyes. 

“Jon,” Elias says mildly, “are you sick?” 

There’s no need for compulsion just yet. Only if Jon’s stubborn, which Elias already knows he will be. It’s part of what makes him such a fine fit for the role he doesn’t yet know that he must play. 

“I can work out the day, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jon says, trying to draw himself up straight, his forehead wrinkling with the effort. 

“Mmm. Are you sure? Is there anything I can do to help?” 

Jon shakes his head. His hands tremble, and Elias gives him a once-over, noting the way his trousers are tented, and assessing the flush across his cheeks. Such is the book’s power: it brings on fever and arousal in equal parts. A few days or even hours in the Lonely might cool him down, but Elias lacks the power to send a person there. More than this, he lacks the inclination to consign his precious Archivist to Peter Lukas’s tender mercies. Better, Elias thinks, to fix this problem himself, viewing it as what it is, which is not an issue at all. After all, this is all his doing, and it would be such a shame to leave the benefits of his decisions unreaped. 

“Are you quite certain?” Elias asks again. 

Jon’s panting audibly now, even as he tries to regulate his breathing. 

“Fine,” he manages to gasp out as he makes his wobbly way to Elias’s desk. 

Elias moves quickly, standing up from behind the desk and coming around to its front, just in time to catch Jon as he slumps, his legs finally giving out as he succumbs at last to the Leitner’s power. Jon is hot to the touch, and shaky with the book’s fire flowing through him, but Elias knows just how to cool him. Of course he does. He’s planned this all. He undoes Jon’s tie, even as Jon’s shaking hands attempt to bat his fingers away. 

“This is for your own good,” Elias says. “Just let me help you.” 

“This is inappropriate,” Jon protests, before drawing in a sharp breath as Elias unbuttons Jon’s shirt, exposing the flushed skin beneath. 

***

When he’s undressed at last, Jon is resisting only weakly, a strange babble of corporate jargon, protestations, and desperate begging. He’s not quite fallen to bits, even under the influence of the Leitner, but he’s beautifully flushed, his pupils wide with a depth of lust that Elias can’t help to respond to, touching him lightly with gentling, firm hands. 

“Shhhhh,” he says to Jon even as he presses him back against the grand desk. “You need this, and you want this.” 

And Jon does, in a way, even if his mind’s been muddled by the Leitner’s malign power. The books are dangerous, true, but they have their uses, and their use now is to make Elias’s Archivist so sweet, so needy, and so furious as Elias lifts Jon’s legs to settle himself between them. 

“What have you done to me?” Jon gasps, but his protests choke off into a moan as Elias drags a hand down his scarred and wiry chest. 

“You need to relax,” Elias says. “You’ve been watching so much lately. So much fixation on your assistants, to the point , and you’ve been watching me for years now, haven’t you, Jon?”  
“That has nothing to do with-- oh Christ, do that again.” Jon’s words come quickly as Elias lets his hand ghost over Jon’s nipples, and down his side. 

“Whatever you want, Jon. You’re being unusually reasonable today.” 

Jon has no response to that but a derisive grimace blurred by his arousal, and the strange out-of-focus look in his eyes. He’s perfect, Elias thinks. Utterly perfect for every purpose he’s designed for, and every purpose that he will fill. Elias really has made an excellent choice of Archivist, and he strokes a worm scar left across Jon’s hip. A perfect mark. One of what will be many. He finally brings his hand to Jon’s arse-- there’s not much to grab, bony as he is, but such things do not matter at this moment. All that matters is the way that Jon now opens for Elias, spread wide in mind and in body. 

Jon arches up into Elias’s hands, as though he’s been aching for the touch, and, as Elias idly rifles through Jon’s mind, he knows that Jon has. It’s that knowledge that inspires him to take his hands away from Jon’s body even as Jon whines in complaint, and to rummage with one hand in his desk drawer to find the lube he’s stowed there, in preparation for this day. With the other, he undoes his trousers and pulls out his half-hard cock. 

There’s tension in all of Jon’s movements as he tries to arrange himself more comfortably on the desk, but Elias pushes him back down, making Jon ready even as he struggles feebly against Elias’s hands. Elias doesn’t know if Jon would rather kiss him or kill him, because Jon himself doesn’t know. But he clearly enjoys the sensation when Elias presses slickened fingers into Jon, working him open and making him squirm on the surface of the desk. Jon’s cock twitches, and he lets out a little whimper that could as easily be a “yes” as a “stop”. 

The fingering’s perfunctory, and soon, Elias is thrusting into Jon, body and mind, his cock entering Jon’s arse even as he probes into Jon’s mind. As he thrusts, he sees everything, Jon’s muddled psyche spread as open as his body. There’s pleasure there, and terror, and anger, all swirled and fogged with the book’s heat as Jon writhes beneath Elias. He’s feeling every gentle touch as if it is a wound, every pleasurable drag of Elias’s cock within him like a tongue of fire. Soon, pleasure supplants all apprehension, and Jon comes at last, spending on himself and Elias even as Elias spends in him with a great cry of pleasure. 

Jon blinks up at him, his flesh cool, his face still flushed from the moment, and his eyes still bright. Elias watches him expectantly, now that the book’s worn off or been fucked out of him. He cannot wait to hear what Jon has to say. 

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my fantastic beta StripySock.
> 
> Title pulled from Algernon Charles Swinburne's "A Ballad of Death" (and yes, it is from a line about eyes).


End file.
